advanced building skins 14 | 15 June 2012 - lamp.tugraz.at - Graz ...

Advanced Building Skins
The basic design element for the store is the shop window with a deforming effect. A 50 mm Plexiglas
block was milled, formed and polished to get convex and concave surfaces like a lense. This form has
the effect of a moving room while passing the window and adjusts the view into a swimming pool.
To realize the effect it had to be possible to machine the material with a polishing option for the finish.
At the end 50mm Plexiglas® were milled 3-dimensional and hand polished. The thickness of the
material was important to have enough for the convex and concave form. Another important demand
was the absolute weather resistance. Acrylic material is often used in glasses. Therefore it was nearby
to use the same material in this object.
3.3 Palacio de Congresos, Badajoz
Figure 5: Raab Karcher Store, Berlin
The Conference Center of Badajoz, opened in 2006, is already considered one of Spain‘s most
emblematic modern structures. Its designers and builders have thus put the city of 130,000 inhabitants
firmly on the map of contemporary architectural sights worth seeing.
The conference center is hidden among the remains of an old fortress, the Baluarte de San Roque.
From a distance, all that can be seen is a white cylinder poking out of the green fortress walls. This is a
16-meter-high tower whose entire outer surface is composed of a staggered arrangement of white
tubes, forming ring upon ring. The tube structure provides glimpses of the orange and white corridors
of the foyer. By contrast, PLEXIGLAS and other plastics used here are unlike to the subterranean
conference rooms, according to architect José Selgas, for „lightness and emptiness, for the wind“.
Figure 6: Palacio de Congresos, Badajoz
A special installation process was used to prevent the glowing outer shell from casting undesired
shadows. The 4.39 m long white tubes were linked with each other by clear, 16 cm long ones.
Specially developed silicone gaskets provide the requisite stability. The 4,248 white tubes and 4,104
connecting tubes were made from special colored, weather resistant material and thermoformed to the
desired shape. The use of products with standard geometries, manufactured with specially adjusted
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